Dominion and Scana announce merger plan

03 January 2018

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Dominion Energy and Scana Corporation have today announced an agreement for them to combine in a stock-for-stock merger. They said the agreement calls for "significant benefits" to Scana's South Carolina Electric & Gas Company subsidiary (SCE&G) electricity customers to offset previous and future costs related to the withdrawn VC Summer units 2 and 3 nuclear power plant project.

After the closing of the merger and subject to regulatory approvals, these benefits include a $1.3 billion cash payment within 90 days upon completion of the merger to all customers, worth $1000 for the average residential electric customer. They also include a more than $1.7 billion write-off of existing VC Summer 2 and 3 capital and regulatory assets, which would never be collected from customers.

According to the agreement, Scana would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Dominion Energy, maintaining its "significant community presence", local management structure and the headquarters of its SCE&G utility in South Carolina. The transaction would be accretive to Dominion Energy's earnings upon closing, which is expected this year upon receipt of regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Thomas Farrell - the chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Energy - said the transaction would "lock in significant and immediate savings" for SCE&G customers, including the "largest utility customer cash refund in history".

Scana CEO Jimmy Addison said joining with Dominion Energy would "provides resources that will enable us to once again focus on our core operations and best serve our customers".

The combined company would operate in 18 US states from Connecticut to California. It would deliver energy to about 6.5 million regulated customer accounts in eight states and have an electric generating portfolio of 31,400 MWe and 93,600 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines. It also would have a natural gas pipeline network totalling 106,400 miles and operate one of the nation's largest natural gas storage systems with 1 trillion cubic feet of capacity.

Scana announced on 28 December that SCE&G had filed a formal request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to withdraw the combined operating licences for Summer units 2 and 3.